The Ro24 was a whirlwind of unexpected results with many fan favorites knocked out by the harshness of the pure Bo1 format, however it did come with games of quality you usually only see in the later stage of the the tournament, well not all of them, for we have a feature from Simplistik talking about all the Dos and mostly Dont's with high risk plays you can try in your daily ladder experience.

Followed up with the previews of first 2 groups in the Ro16 featuring both the former champ Royal and the runner up Rush in their own groups and other contenders like Jaedong and ZerO too.

This is going to be a fun week.

Hyper-Aggro - Mini vs sSak
In Brood War, aggression is often correct. All-ins and timing attacks win significant numbers of games. And many high-level games revolve around who can do more economic damage. That's why vulture/reaver/lurker harrass is so common. The earlier the damage, the better. Thus we see Vulture openings, ling-run-by's, and forward gates.

So I can't fault Mini for aggression, or even hyper-aggression. When it works, it wins games and an improbable bust can be a thing of beauty. But there are limits. Aggression is not the correct move in EVERY situation. Sometimes you lose too much and accomplish too little. So here's a helpful review.

03:25
2 Zealots, 1 Probe for 3 Marines
Not worth it. But it didn't delay the Protoss expansion, and it had some potential, so probably still correct.

04:55
5 Probes for 3 Marines
Really not worth it. That vulture got in because Mini wanted to be aggressive with his goons.

08:45
1 Shuttle, 1 Reaver, 2 Zealots, 3 Goons for 2 Goliaths, 4 Tanks, 2 SCV's and 20s of mining time
Worth it. Thinning out tanks early is great. Most of the goons survived. Also managed to take a 3rd behind.



10:45
4 Vultures for 1 Goon, 13(!) Probes and later 2 (crucial) Templars
BINGO!



12:01
6 Vultures for 1 Goon, 1 Zealot
Not worth it on its own, but opened up the 4th expansion for further aggro.

12:44
2 Vultures for 2 Cannons, 4 Probes
Also shut down that expansion. Got more Probe kills later too.
BINGO!

13:15
2 Shuttles, 2 Zealots, 3(!) Reavers for 2 Goliaths, 1 Vulture, 1 Tank, 8 SCV's
This looked bad, and probably wasn't worth it, but Protoss was still up in supply afterwards and Terran didn't have a lot of eco. That D-Matrix!



14:43
2 Shuttles, 8 Zealots, 4 Goons for 4 Tanks, a few SCV's
Not worth it, but maybe better value than losing these units to the Terran push that killed two expansions. Could the push have been held though?

Despite the lopsided results of the aggression, Mini's counter-drops near the end of the game were clutch and put the result back in doubt. If that DT at 1 o'clock had saved the Nexus, then Mini would've been in a winning position.

Aggression is smart. Hyper-aggression is gambling.

Verdict: Just chill man! Try some moderation...

(Unless you're Mini. In that case, keep doing what you're doing. You create some great games.)

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Triple Rock - Stork vs Terran
In a Bo3 rock-paper-scissors match, one of the strongest combos is triple rock. You need nerves of steel, but most opponents don't believe in the third punch. Maybe that is what Stork had in mind when he want Carriers three games in a row.



But there is a crucial difference between RPS and BW. Terrans have *SCANNERS*. And if you go 3-base Carriers, they will simply not miss it.



There is also a crucial difference between me playing RPS and the Dinotoss playing TvP. Nobody remembers the last time Dino didn't go for Carriers. (Hell, he even went Carriers against Jaedong once!) Has he actually ever built an Arbiter on camera!?



Verdict: Go Carriers every game on ladder. Honestly, it's fine.

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Guardians - ZvT
There were two attempts at guardians in ZvT (Soma vs Mind, Sacsri vs Light), and both failed. I tried to remember the last time I've seen successful guardian play at the top level, and drew a blank. Instead I remembered Royal killing 1 guardian with 3 marines.

Sacsri's guardians got caught out in the open, while morphing, without support, on the shortest path between the starting locations. Don't do this.



Soma did a somewhat better job. Initially he managed to keep Mind behind the bridges and near the Terran natural. But it turns out that valks, wraiths and bio work pretty well against hydra / guardian in the open.



Verdict: Get Lurkers.

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Fast core - Ruin vs Shine
You are Ruin. It's the Final Match, you are Protoss and your opponent is Shine (legitimately one of the best ZvP's in history). You are, reasonably, worried about some aggressive Zerg play. (You've watched Mini, so...) You decide offense is the best defence and go Core first. With the Forge in your main, you will be able to protect your +1 weapons upgrade, and the ability to build Cannons.



You've seen the Ling timing. You only have 1 Zealot. You fail to plug the gaps with Probes. 4 Lings get in. They kill 2 Probes. You send two Zealots out. Then you build a Cannon. 3 more Lings arrive. The wall is still open. They kill the Cannon. They kill 4 Probes. Your Zealots do nothing. You are ruined.



Verdict: Plug those gaps.

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5-Pool Eco - HyuN vs Sharp
The best thing about 2-player maps is early Pool all-ins. And HyuN brought a slick variant against Sharp. Via extractor trick, Hyun gets 8 Lings, then an Overlord.

Of course Sharp sees the Lings coming, and he knows exactly how to deal with it, not even needing a bunker, but he builds one anyway. He blocks the ramp expertly with SCV's and keeps the Lings out until he has 2 Marines. 5 SCV's explode, but when the rush ends, Sharp has 11 SCV's & 3 Marines. While HyuN has 3 Lings, 6 Drones and starts his natural Hatchery.



Strangely, from here on the timings favour HyuN. When Sharp finds the Hatchery, it's already nearly finished, while neither his CC, nor 2nd Rax have even started. When the Spire starts morphing, there is no Academy and the 2nd Rax, CC and Refinery are still building.

Behind 6 Lings, HyuN takes his third, while Sharp bunkers down in his natural with 8 Marines. When Mutas pop at 7:08, supplies are basically even. We all know Sharp plays better from a disadvantage, but this turns out to be too much. The rest of the game is a horrible SCV/Marine/Turret-massacre. At 11 minutes there is one SCV mining the natural. One.



In the end, HyuN knocks Sharp out of the ASL with a big lurker attack before siege is done.

Verdict: 5-Pool Eco: 50% of the time it works every time!

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Tower Defence
I have seen some let's say negative comments about Rain, Bisu et al spending too much time on UMS games. But maybe practicing tower defence is actually a good idea.

Ample forces Soma into an off-location Hatchery with an annoying E-Bay, and then goes Mech off 3 Marines behind a wall. Soma responds with 3 gas Mutas and a couple of Sunkens.

At 07:54 Ample moves out with a scary 13 Goliaths. Sunkens deny the Goliaths, but Soma decides to engage the +1 Goliaths with his unupgraded Mutas. Don't do this. All the Mutas die, while Ample is moving out with his first Tank, and crucially 4 SCV's.

Soma denies reinforcements. But Ample's first Tank starts shelling the Sunkens, while his SCV's are building an insane battery of 13 Turrets just outside the Zerg natural. The Mutas all melt, but Hydras should be good against Turrets and Goliaths, right? Wrong. The Turrets mess up the attacks and pathing of the Hydras. Ample gets great value out of his SCV's, by repairing his mech units.



In the end Soma fails to break through the Turret contain gauntlet

Verdict: Do try tower defence against Zerg!

The group with the top seed, aka last season's winner, Royal
Royal can't wish for a more perfect Ro16 group than this: 3 Zerg opponents. Many Terrans' TvZ is their best match up and for Royal this is no different. Last time I checked the valkyrie builds weren't solved by Zerg yet and I doubt we will see it be solved this group. Shine might have an answer being Shine, but I'm sure we couldn't call it a solution. It will likely just be a trick; just another build from his bag. It should be most interesting to see the opening match up as it is Royal vs Shine. Will Shine be thristy for revenge? Remember Royal 3-0'd him last season. I'd say that does call for revenge or at least a good showing to redeem himself.

Jaedong and Action, the other Zergs ready and waiting. When I think of Jaedong I immediately think of JvZ. The time that has passed since Jaedong's dominance doesn't affect that, because generally the ZvZ match up has not seen any innovation nor meta change since then. Now JvZ, was that a thing simply because he was better and faster at everything than his peers? Perhaps he knew something other Zergs diidn't? Maybe it was instinct? What ever the answer is, if I were Jaedong I'd forgo ZvT, have faith in myself that what was once there is still there and solely practice ZvZ.
Channel your ultra instinct, JD!

Action, like Jaedong, also has the option to just focus on ZvZ for this round, but will he? Historically Action is good at all match ups. He is not a sniper nor a trained specialist vs any race. He does have a specialty however, it's his late game. His best chance to go late game this round is ZvT. And his best bet to get this ZvT is beating JD in his opening match and counting on Royal to not succumb to Shine, of which the latter does feel like a moderately safe bet. The opening matches are bo1 though and we all know anything can happen there... Anyway. How can Action first beat JD? Perhaps he can coinflip on a build order win vs JD? Action will have to be a gambling man to get out of this group.

Royal has been on top of his game since last ASL, he did not suddenly start slacking. He is the favorite to win this group, but who will join him in the Ro8? Jaedong with his limited stanima. Bag-of-Builds or late-game-Action? It's hard to pick a clear 2nd favorite to win. You can count on me to stupidly root (and LB) for Shine, but let's please the fans for this one and say Lee Jae Dong.

Royal and Jaedong Advance to the Ro8!

You tell me its 3 Terrans in a Ro16 group and its going to be a long night, especially when Rush, JyJ and BarrackS aren’t that far apart, well BarrackS is a bit behind, well not by much, luckily though ZerO is there to break the monotony and surely he’s happy enough to only need to practise one matchup, either way, its time to bring the popcorn because its going to be a long group.

Rush of course is coming off his runner up finish from last year, pretty keen on starting the season the same way he finished his last with more TvT, so far Rush has had middling to bad performances this month playing in Major Proleague with very few to no wins since the start of the month, of course all of that could change offline but right now Rush doesn’t seem like the favourite people might think, for the most part he hasn’t fully dropped into playing K-League groups just yet aside from some particularly strong days, but even there his performance hasn’t been the best, not even close to how he was at the start of the year.

JyJ is the premiere middle tier terran with most of his performances being in the K-League catching big wins there, he should do well in the group against the other terrans, facing ZerO first does him no favours but a series against Rush and BarrackS on the other hand isn’t a bad situation for him to be in, especially given that Rush right now isn’t looking as in form as he could be.

BarrackS is much in the same vein as JyJ especially when it comes to being tossed around by Zergs, his Ro24 performance on its own wasn’t a very popular one and certainly doesn’t give me confidence that he would last in an actual series even if its a Bo3.

ZerO’s month so far has been tailor made for this specific group, while having a decent showing all over Major Proleague, most of his wins against terran have been against Rush, losing to him only once over the course of the month, while every other meeting has been a victory, ZerO has also faced JyJ only once and lost but a single game isn’t much to go by, of all the people in this group ZerO is the one I’m the most confident in advancing first.

There’s a lot of doubt in my mind over who would really take 2nd place among the trifecta of terran in the group, they’re all roughly similar at the moment, but I’d like to give the offline advantage to our runner up.


ZerO and Rush to Advance to the Ro8!

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Writers: BLinD-RawR, Peeano, Simplistik
Graphics: v1, BLinD-RawR
Editors: BLinD-RawR