EPTAs the round of 16 kicked off we of course had the perennial favorite to at least get to the finals none other than Incredible Miracle's MVP. A true TvT master we were all watching to see who was going to come out of the group in second place, right?
The day started with the always dominant MVP taking on FXOGuMiho in a TvT. The first match on Dual sight saw MVP go for what appeared to be his standard opening for the match up, barracks first into a command center then taking two quick refineries. GuMiho, on the other hand, went for a reactor hellion into banshee play. The turning point of this game was when MVP spotted GuMiho's first banshee coming across the map and managed to quickly take it out with a viking. With the threat of banshees now gone MVP could go back to teching up to get to his eventual mech death ball of course. Well, actually that was not the case, GuMiho had researched cloak in the background and while intentional or not the first banshee dying so easily to MVP's viking allowed him to let his guard down and not worry about a further banshee threat. 3 banshees stormed into MVP's base and he had no scans ready for a very long time; the banshees ended up killing 21 workers before anything could be done about them and from there GuMiho was able to coast to victory.
Game 2 on Daybreak saw MVP open up the very same way and GuMiho decided to go for the barracks into command center before throwing down an additional 2 barracks and going for the double gas himself. After a little bit of marine scouting earlier on GuMiho chose to get the +1 melee attack upgrade before starting stim and combat shield. A bit later on GuMiho dropped a scan on MVP's main base and saw a tech-lab upgrading something on MVP's starport. This caused MVP to cancel the banshee he was building and opt for a raven instead while preparing to go mech. While gearing up for banshees that would never come, and teching up to starport for vikings back at his main base, GuMiho tried to poke out on the map and see what he could see; unfortunately for him this is a big mistake as MVP caught his units out on the map and in a very favorable engagement he cleaned up a majority of GuMiho's forces. However, GuMiho had been amassing quite a squad of vikings during this time and he decided to take them and land in MVP's main mineral line. For some reason MVP engaged all of the vikings with only scvs and 20 scvs were killed before MVP could force the vikings away. Later on MVP, with his mech army, tried to push up the natural ramp of GuMiho and was able to gain a favorable position for a moment; until GuMiho dropped the newly planted 3rd base of MVP and forced him to go home to secure it. GuMiho then put down his 4th command center before deciding to do a push of his own. He ran a sizable group of units into MVP's main base while he engaged his army in the center of the map, the units were able to get into the production of MVP and do a serious amount of damage. At that point GuMiho had basically won the game, he transitions into a more siege tank heavy composition and walked up into MVP's base forcing the GG.
Match 2 of the day saw the only non-terran of the group, StarTale's Curious, against the new face in Fnatic, aLive. The first map, Bel'Shir Beach, saw Curious open standard while aLive went for a very light bunker pressure followed by a starport and factory, both with no addons for a bit, so he could put down two extra barracks with tech labs for stim and combat shield while getting his expansion up. Curious defended a couple small pokes by aLive very well with ling, baneling before getting his spire at the 9 minute mark and putting down his third base soon after. Curious ended up getting a very nice scout of aLive's base with an overseer; afterwards he decided to go for a baneling bust against a wall-off of only supply depots and a bunker. The bust was successful in taking out the wall, but was relatively easily cleaned up after the wall went down. ALive was mostly hanging out in his base after the failed bust getting up his thor count to combat the incoming mutas. Curious displayed some generally poor mutalisk control losing multiple mutas to small groups of marines and thors all over the map before trying to bust down the wall again, doing even less damage than the first attack. During the bust aLive was able to push towards Curious' newly planted 4th base and take it out with ease. After sniping the 4th of Curious, aLive, decides to push towards Curious' third base forcing a massive amount of banelings to blow up on his thors in the process. ALive then continued to deny access to a 4th base for Curious and eventually starved him to death, forcing the GG.
The second map, Crossfire, saw much of the same in terms of play from both players. ALive opened up with a marauder hellion timing, but upon seeing multiple spines at Curious' natural he decided to return home before losing many units. Later on aLive, now with siege tanks and marines in the mix, pushed again trying to lightly contain Curious' outside of his natural expansion. This however proved to be a poor decision as Curious easily broke the contain once his mutas were out on the map. After a lot of back and forth, where each player got up their third base, and neither player really lost many units, aLive moved out towards Curious' third base getting a nice siege position in the lower right on the ramp. This attack also proved to be fruitless as after killing the queen aLive's entire attacking force was once again cleaned up. While all of this was transpiring Curious was able to get up to 2-1 on his ground army with +2 attack on the way for his mutalisks. ALive again pushed at the third base of Curious, after walking across the map, and this time Curious made the mistake of carelessly moving his mutas into the army of aLive, losing all of them. ALive then sent a small force of marines to the would-be 4th base of Curious taking that out easily and in turn ending the game.
Well with arguably the two favorites of the group losing their first matches, the winners match showcased the TvT of MVP slayer, Gumiho, against the flashy play of aLive. ALive was truly able to assert himself as an incredibly capable TvT player, showcasing great decision making and strategy while playing mech.
Map 1 was Cloud Kingdom, GuMiho went for a reaper expand, while aLive hid his barracks outside of his base, but in the end just going for reactor hellions into mech. The beginning of the game saw some light banshee harass and attempted dropping from aLive but no real damage was done. ALive was the first to get up his third base opting for an orbital at the standard location, with GuMiho floating his third over soon after. Later on aLive makes a nice decision placing a planetary at the choke of his natural ramp so that mostly he would only have to defend the third base ramp with his less mobile mech army. After small harass, in which aLive was only able to pick off 7-8 workers at the third of GuMiho, GuMiho decided to try to land a 4th base on the top middle of the map. ALive moved out soon after, after a lot of posturing in the center of the map, he was able to make his way to the natural ramp of GuMiho. A very close battle ensued and while both players lost a lot aLive was able to retain an acceptable amount of tanks. During all of this aLive also begins researching cloak for his banshees. He then pressures the 4th base of GuMiho with a few tanks and slowly pushes up GuMiho's natural ramp. Though GuMiho had very nice drop play, taking out 6 tanks with 2 medivacs on his natural ramp, it was not enough and the more cost effective army of aLive, along with the cloaked banshees, forced GuMiho to GG.
Map 2, Entombed Valley saw both players open with reactor hellions. GuMiho got a nice scan off seeing the tech lab or aLives starport, which was producing a banshee, forcing him to cancel and go for a raven en route to yet another mech game from him. GuMiho with early air dominance was able to do some nice early tank harassment, killing the two natural expansion refineries, before having to return home. It took GuMiho quite a long time to switch from his marine, tank composition into a more marauder based play even though he knew that aLive was heading towards mech-based play; he finally started producing marauders at the 12:30 mark. ALive was able to get down a pretty early third at the 11:30 mark and thus was able to sit and defend until his army was maxed out and ready for battle. Though I wish I was able to make it sound much more exciting than it actually was, aLive moved out, sieged up, and won the game.
Match 4 had MVP trying to hold on to his code S spot in only the round of 16 against the zergs only hope in this group Curious.
The first game was played on Cloud Kingdom and MVP was able to show with only his opening why he is the master of match preparation. He placed his barracks in such a way that he would build his first marine and then float the barracks back into his main base meanwhile the single marine was able to kill Curious' first overlord on the rocks outside of MVP's natural. Next, MVP went for his standard command center after barracks into double refinery to get out the reactor hellions and then prepares to go mech. MVP decides to go for an only thor and hellion composition and after a little bit of back and forth where Curious was able to gauge MVP's army he finally decided to throw down a roach warren at the 13:30 mark. Next with a very nice play against the mostly immobile force of MVP, Curious took bases on both sides of the map. Once the 15 minute mark hit MVP finally decided to begin producing tanks as curious began to upgrade his infestor tech. At the 17 minute mark MVP was able to max out and finally begin his charge across the map. After he moved out Curious was able to sneak a small group of banelings into the 3rd of MVP, but with wonderful awareness MVP ran all his scvs away taking no damage. Mutas began to harass MVP's 4th base eventually taking it down and triggering MVP to push forward and go for the kill. At about the same time as the push hits Curious' natural he has 5 broodlords finish morphing. Curious is also able to get some very nice baneling hits on groups of clumped up thors, MVP then has to retreat, but not before taking down the natural hatchery. After seeing the broodlords MVP begins heavy viking production out of 2 starports and gets a nice single hellion scout of the expansion at 5 o'clock. MVP makes the decision to take his force of thors and head toward the 5 o'clock base. The thors kill the base and the viking escort arrives but just as the group begins to move back towards MVP's base and the rest of his army Curious' army arrives in force with broodlord, mutalisk, corruptor and takes out everything. This is the game losing move. MVP hangs on for a while longer with a small thor force taking out what he can while Curious techs up to infestors and patrols the center of the map with an unkillable force. The final engagement involved MVP creeping a bit too close to an infestor with a cloud of vikings. The fungal was the last thing they ever saw.
MVP chose Antiga Shipyard for the second map. I was quite surprised to find out that MVP was undefeated on the map with an 8-0 record. Good choice I'd say. MVP opened his standard and Curious decided to do the same with a hatch first, though this time opting for a later gas to drone a bit heavier early on. Expecting Curious to take an early third MVP does a nice little trick and places a bunker at it. Curious decided to take a macro hatchery instead of planting down his third where that bunker was placed. he then gets +1 carapace and his lair along with a baneling nest at the 8:30 mark. MVP, during all that, was able to get up a third orbital well before Curious plants his own third base. Curious does get his third down and at the same time takes a 4th at 11 o'clock then decides to opt for the double spire play and go heavily into mutalisk. MVP quickly scouted the 4th with 3 hellions but was unable to do any damage due to a ling surround. Curious then tried to make use of burrowed banelings, but to no avail. After his failed baneling mines were defeated he began to make 20, yes 20, mutalisks at the same time, along with the double air upgrades. MVP decided to try and drop all over the map but never was able to do any real damage. Here and there he was also able to catch some mutas which was due to poor control by Curious. Investing so heavily into mutas one should be much more careful with their control. MVP again attempts to attack the 4th base of Curious with a single thor and a siege tank; while he doesn't get the hatchery, the thor gets off quite a few nice shots taking down some more of Curious' mutas. The big mistake of this game was when Curious backed his flock of mutas into a corner, trapping them between three groups of marines, and losing a vast majority of the mutas. After that blunder MVP was basically able to walk forward with smaller groups of marines and thors and tanks and force Curious to leave the game, keeping his undefeated record intact at 9-0.
For game 3 Curious decided to go with Crossfire. This game showed MVP opening a bit differently with a quick tech lab on his barracks and eventually he switched the tech lab to his factory for quicker than normal siege tanks. Curious went standard hatch first, but again lost an overlord to sneaky MVP and 2 marines in the right position. Later, the game saw MVP go for a more standard marine, siege tank, medivac composition. This lead to him being able to basically entirely deny the muta harass of Curious with marines and medivacs. MVP then went to try and take the watch towers in the center of the map, this allowed Curious to morph a significant amount of banelings outside of MVP's natural and use them to attack the depot wall at the base. A drop at Curious third base does a serious amount of damage as the base is undefended and eventually the base dies. MVP took that opportunity to move across the center of the map and gain position on the high ground near Curious' natural. Curious takes that as a sign to use his banelings on the depot wall at MVP's natural and does a nice bit of damage as he is able to clean up the forces there allowing the mutas a short while to run rampant in the base. This causes MVP to have to return home yet again. After stabilizing MVP again moves out along the middle of the map while using a small drop to pull Curious' units out of position. Curious goes to take his 3rd at the 5 o'clock position again and after the base is up MVP moves there with his main army. As the army moves towards Curious' third base he again decides it would be a wiser move to counter attack the natural of MVP with lings and banelings. MVP backs up a bit, though now only the mutas remain in his main after the bust mostly failed. A small force of marines again kill the 3rd of Curious. When all is said and done MVP is down to 15 workers while Curious sits at a cool 30. The game ends with a battle at the natural of Curious after MVP barely holds off a counter attack at his main with a tank and a few marines at his natural ramp. Curious had a force large enough to kill the army of MVP, but, a combination of the poor baneling micro of Curious and reasonable splitting of MVP sealed the deal for the 3 time champ.
The last match, a rematch of the first match, would not wield the same results. MVP wouldn't allow that, would he? A win for GuMiho here would single-handedly put him in a very private club, would it not? Would he be able to beat MVP in 2 best of 3's within hours of each other.
The first game would be on Entombed Valley. MVP opts for a wall in with gas after barracks, while GuMiho goes 1 rax, expand. MVP goes for a banshee opening. MVP finally places down a command center at the 8 minute mark and he gets some very nice multi-pronged harassment going with 2 banshees despite GuMiho having a raven out. MVP moves out at the 9 minute mark with tank, marine, and banshee. GuMiho sees MVP moving out and is even able to finally clean up both banshees with some quick moves outside of his ramp. MVP is able to walk right up to GuMihos ramp and siege up. Though, GuMiho has a ball of marines and marauders in the middle of the map he has no idea what to do with them and he ends up just not using them basically. MVP eventually decides to go home when he scans GuMiho loading up 2 medivacs going for a drop. MVP catches the rogue squad of marines and marauders along with the 2 medivacs near his natural ramp, kills everything, and wins the game.
Game 2 was on Antiga Shipyard, attentive readers will remember that MVP is 9-0 on this map in his career. MVP opens barracks refinery and GuMiho goes with the same but sneaks out an extra SCV before morphing his orbital. MVP opts for the same build as last game with banshees and GuMiho get a command center followed by a starport after production of a single hellion. His factory then produces a tech lab and the starport is placed on it for a raven. MVP looks to be going mech as he puts down a second factory while doing some nice harass with 2 banshees, using 1 to pull the raven out of GuMiho's base, while the other sneaks in to do some mineral line damage. Both players transition into a type of mech with GuMiho having many more vikings and MVP going for a more thor-centric composition. GuMiho then starts what I will now refer to as his, "trademark viking landing harassment strategy (catchy I know)." He lands the vikings in MVP's mineral line along with his raven dropping 3 auto-turrets and nearly kills the main orbital, but MVP is able to repair it just in time though he doesn't kill many of the harassing units. During the harassment in his base MVP decided that turn-about is fair play and he dropped 3 auto-turrets of his own in GuMiho's main mineral line killing a nice number of scvs and a few supply depots. GuMiho is the first player to get up a 3rd base and he continues to build his serious viking advantage. While MVP is stalking around the map GuMiho manages to find a window to sneak a few hellions into MVP's natural and he ends up kill about 10 more workers for only a few hellions. A bit passes as MVP starts to get thors 2 at a time and GuMiho goes for his trademark viking landing harassment strategy again, this time only killing 2 workers and a depot before the thors pop; when they pop he loses 3 vikings and his raven. After the attack GuMiho is still up 30 supply due to his much faster 3rd base. At 17 minutes GuMiho decides to kill the rocks at MVP's third base and then charge in, this turned out to be a bad decision as MVP surrounded the army and killed it relatively easily. However, during that attack GuMiho was able to move another siege tank force to the low ground outside MVP's main base and begin shelling a factory with vision from his vikings. He kills the factory and this triggers MVP to push toward GuMiho's third base now killing the rocks and taking position on the high ground there. He kills the depot wall at GuMiho's third but that is all the damage he is able to do. Now with a 50 supply lead and a landed and beginning to function 4th base GuMiho is up 50 supply. He simply walks to MVP's third base again and is able to wear him down with his superior numbers, handing MVP his first ever league loss on Antiga Shipyard. Craziness.
The final match of the day was on GuMiho's map choice, Cloud Kingdom. GuMiho opens 1 rax expand with 2 refineries and MVP goes 1 rax expand with 1 gas before getting 2 additional barracks. MVP gets a nice scout in by way of a 3 health scv to scout the factory and double gas already taken for GuMiho. While this is happening for some reason GuMiho begins to attack his own natural orbital with 2 marines and they continue to shoot at it until it starts on fire. He then realizes and repairs it to half life. GuMiho then goes for some hellion drops into MVP's natural doing little damage. MVP goes for a more bio style play this time, for what reason I'm not entirely sure. He scouted the main very early on and could most likely make the assumption that GuMiho would go mech, but he continued to push with the bio anyhow. MVP is the first player with a 3rd functioning base. After GuMiho lands a third of his own both players attempt to take the center of the map with MVP being forced to retreat. At around the 15 minute mark GuMiho, nearing maxed supply, gets a hellion drop into the main of MVP in addition to a hit squad into the third bases mineral line, the harassment proves worthwhile as of now with GuMiho having killed 30 scvs at this point. MVP takes bases all over the map at 10 o'clock, 9 o'clock, and 5 o'clock while going for multiple ravens. Both players just kind of hanging out now aside from some very small harassment. Then MVP makes his first mistake, he loads up 5 medivacs full of units and tries to drop into the natural of GuMiho. However, GuMiho has a massive amount of turrets, like 6, all defending the drop location and the units that are able to drop are swiftly dealt with. After that blunder things seem to stabilize and MVP is trying to do damage all over the map with small marine marauder medivac forces but GuMiho is still defending well enough to be ahead in supply significantly. GuMiho has enough and decides to push into the natural of MVP with thors and tanks, GuMiho is able to take out the 3rd of MVP. MVP is multi-tasking like a madman but to no avail. GuMiho is now maxed out with 2 ravens against a very marauder heavy composition. MVP begins to look defeated and gears up for his final assault on GuMiho as GuMiho sits outside of MVP's natural expansion, first however, MVP is able to take out the 4th command center of GuMiho. MVP does a very good job in the initial engagement of baiting out 3 PDDs from the 2 ravens leaving at most 1 more. Then MVP makes the second mistake and for whatever reason decides to attack into the 3 freshly planted PDDs and a line of tanks with basically only marauders. This kills his entire army and ends the game sending perhaps the favorite to win the entire tournament all the way down to code A round of 24.
A sad day for MVP fans everywhere, but in my opinion he was truly outplayed today on almost all accounts. By the way aLive played I would not have been surprised to see him beat down MVP aswell if they had happened to play. ALive looked like the best player in the group with GuMiho truly looking second best. While MVP initially was the only person to really use mech in TvT, GuMiho was able to beat him with his own game a couple different times. One must ask the question now, have the other korean terrans caught up to MVP? or was this just a bad day?
