EPTI do not know about anyone else out there, but as far as I am concerned these have been the best, most competitive, well thought out Starcraft 2 games we have ever seen. The ironed out tried and tested build orders, the high quality of game reading and strategy involved has been unmatched in any Starcraft 2 tournaments that we have seen to date.
The quality of games in only the round of 32 has been out of this world thus far in the 2012 GSL Code S Season 1.
Starting with defending champion Jjakji advancing 2nd in his group after an epic set against the Emperor himself, SlayerSBoxeR. Fellow Terran, GanZi, took a convincing first place after losing only 1 game against BoxeR on ESV Cloud Kingdom. Unfortunately one of the few foreign hopes this season, Sen, had a decent showing but was unable to win even a single game against the other seasoned code S players.
Group B was supposed to be the coming out party of potential favorite and former Broodwar pro, oGsfOrGG, but unfortunately he was placed in a group with 2 of his teammates who handled his crisp build orders and timing attacks with reasonable ease. Last seasons runner-up FXOLeenock had a decent showing going 4-4 in games, but group winner oGsSuperNoVa showed he is a true up and comer by coming back after an initial loss against Leenock in the winners match on Bel'Shir Beach. Then there is oGsMC, a crowd favorite and true great personality of E-sports. After a loss to SuperNoVa in his first set he came back from a 1-0 deficit against teammate fOrGG and took out potential favorite Leenock in a third game despite the jet lag from his recent Homestory Cup IV win.
Group C was for all intents and purposes, a group of death. Two Multiple time GSL champions and general bad asses IM's MVP and NesTea; and the other foreigner hope Evil Geniuses IdrA. Oh yeah, and FXO's Lucky. The first set, MVP v Lucky, was a complete drubbing as MVP showed why he is a perennial powerhouse and favorite to win everything he enters. Unfortunately set 2 was also a bit of a beating with NesTea defeating IdrA and defending a 1 base baneling, zergling all-in on Dual Sight and then coasting to victory after securing his 1 game lead. The winners match NesTea v MVP was, in general, a fine showing of why each player is a nerd god. NesTea fought back from a 1-0 deficit by taking games 2 and 3 on Bel'Shir Beach and Entombed Valley respectively. IdrA lost a bit of a nail-biting losers match against Lucky due to Luckys perfectly timed roach aggression on Antiga Shipyard. Finally, after a much better showing by Lucky in the first game of the final set; MVP showed yet again that he is as good as it gets right now in SC2. In a 30 minute game MVP simply outlasted and outplayed Lucky with a mass ghost/nuke army on Daybreak.
On day 4 we saw some players that do not get quite the amount of hype that some others may, but they showed us amazing games all the same. Match 1 had FXO's Oz taking on Startale's Curious. Oz was able to jump out to a 1-0 lead after a bit of a sloppy game ended with him destroyed the army of Curious in a choke at his 3rd base on Daybreak. Game 2 saw more of a crazy game which involved drones killing groups of sentries and base trades all over the place. Oz ended up taking the game in the end by not taking as much base damage as Curious. One of the best known players of the Group played in the 2nd set of the day StarTale_Bomber along with oGsInCa. InCa stayed true to his style of playing a bit erratic and ended up pulling it out in 2 games by overwhelming Bombers army on Daybreak. The winners match had Oz taking out InCa in a relatively standard PvP 2-1. The losers game saw Bomber go up 1-0 on Curious with a win on Antiga Shipyard. However Curious wasn't finished, and with a decisive win on Bel'Shir took the series to 1-1. The third game ended quickly with Curious finding a proxy barracks and finishing Bomber with lings and banelings on Daybreak. The Final match was a PvZ and ended on Entombed Valley with Curious getting an early lead with mutas and a massive economy then coasted to the victory after holding off some stalker aggression.
There's a quick recap of the first 4 groups, groups E,F, and G tomorrow with more in depth reviews of groups G and H
