We are already seeing entertaining games and exciting results from the first half of the Ro24. Groups D, E and F are shaping up to look more of the same if not better with their lineups.

We have Simplistik return for Battle Reports from the most exciting games of the last week as FlashFTW previews the latter half of the Groups.


Liquipedia

Praise be the Brood War Gods, for they have surely blessed this season! Changing the name back to ASL appears to have been received positively by the powers that be.

Group A, Match 1 - Mini vs Scan on Eclipse

For at least the fourth time in ASL history, Mini graces the stage in the opening game. After his disappointing elimination last season (three standard PvP's), I was hoping he would bring back the entertainment. And the Pervert Toss definitely delivered.

I wondered how Scan felt getting paired with Mini after last season's vicious reaver beating. He looked reasonably calm though. I'm sure both players have spent plenty of time playing Eclipse, so I didn't expect any extremely crazy openings. And sure enough, both players open conservatively: 10-gate at the natural and 10-rax in base respectively. Mini scouts first and gets a gas steal in when Scan has 98 minerals.



The scouting probe is being annoying, but nothing Terran can't handle. The scouting SCV sees the first Zealot start trudging across the map. With two zealots out on the map, Mini starts warping in a nexus. Meanwhile, marines have taken down the cuckoo assimilator and chased the probe out.

Scan starts his natural command centre on location, with only four marines and one SCV to buffer, which seemed risky. And when the zealots manage to get onto the marines, I feared the game would just end here.



But Mini's micro is very slightly off, and Scan dances his marines on the ramp beautifully. One SCV slides through the zealots to buffer just enough to swing the fight. The damage gets spread out between the marines. Only one marine and one SCV die for two zealots and a probe, and the Terran natural is save for the time being.

Terran follows up with a bunker and a factory, Protoss with the cybernetics core. Mini starts a sneaky Pylon at 12 o'clock and sends the next two zealots past the bunker. The force a few SCV's off the line and get a couple of kills, but overall this seems more like a distraction.

A vulture glides around various edges of the map to look for potential Protoss shenanigans. But it gets corned and blown up by a dragoon without finding the proxy location. Meanwhile, the first four tanks move out, preceded by some disposable infantry. There aren't enough dragoons to really slow down the Terran advance.



And then the reaver-shuttle arrives at the Terran main. And there are literally zero defences. No turrets. No units. I couldn't quite tell if Scan misread the situation, or whether he was ready for a base trade. Either way, he orders his tanks forward to start putting pressure on the Protoss natural.

From here on the game gets very messy as both players have to micro in multiple locations. SCV's scatter in different directions to dodge scarabs, probes are sacrificed to fight vultures and defuse mines.

Despite an emergency shield battery, the mech platoon quickly obliterates most of the defending dragoons. While back at the Terran home, two fresh tanks try to deal with the reaver. For a short while it looks like Mini can't get any SCV kills to save his life. The Protoss drop gets cleaned up without doing much damage. But the robotics location is close, so the second reaver arrives very quickly. Mini lines up a shot on the SCV line and then...



On the other side of the map, a dragoon trips over two spider mines while chasing the siege tanks and blows up himself, three of his buddies and some probes. Three tanks are still alive, shelling the natural, but the reaver has also racked up 14 kills.



And less than ten seconds later, the kill count has climbed to 21. And it keeps going up. A second shuttle with another reaver also arrives. And although Protoss can't mine from the natural, Terran can't really mine from either base now. When the SCV's return to the natural, the kill count increases to 31. But the tanks and spider mines also continue to wreak havoc on the other side of the map.



Another big mine takes out another two dragoons and more probes get blown up by the Terran artillery. One of the tanks rolls up the ramp and gets blown up. And, with youthful grace, another dragoon daintily steps on a mine. A goliath wanders into the Protoss main to see what all the fuss is about. Or maybe the pilot was seeking shelter from the scarab onslaught. One of the shuttles, now with speed, comes back to help clear out the remaining Terran units, while it's twin takes care of the last few SCV's. And with only three supply left, one goliath and an SCV, in the Protoss main, Scan taps out.



What a great way to start this season. Long may it continue.

Group C, Winners - BarrackS vs BTS on Metropolis

Barracks (aka BarrackS, aka barrac) vs BTS (aka TRUE, aka Alone, aka Princess) was probably not the winners match most casual viewers expected. For me, Barracks was the solid favourite for the group, which he demonstrated nicely. His TvT is just better than Mind's at the moment, so no suprise there. BTS played a rather unusual game against Best, where he won with six muta-switches in a row, despite getting maelstromed the first time, much to the amusement of the other pros.

It is usually a mistake for underdogs to play standard, and so BTS decides to pull out the 7-pool opening, first pioneered (rather unsuccessfully) by Soulkey against Light.



Given that mutalisks are quite good on metropolis, this build was probably not a high likelihood in Barracks' mind. So, he opens 1-rax-FE. Which can get run over by early lings, especially on a map without ling-tight walls. The first scouting SCV heads out in exactly the wrong direction. But the commander doesn't like risks, so he sends out another one. An overlord sees the second scout, but the zerglings fail to get out of the path in time.



This saves Barracks' backside. Although the second depot was already under construction, an SCV pull after finding the main would've been too late. As it is, five workers set up to block the gap to protect the first marine. But zerglings can be slippery, especially if you try to grab them with welders. Lings chew up the marine, and head into the main. They almost snag another marine, but Barracks' SCV micro is good. More zerglings arrive and a messy fight ensues. Two more marines get picked off and another SCV explodes.



On first viewing it was easy to miss, but BTS actually took his natural when his first lings got into the Terran main. And for a while Barracks only had five to seven SCV's mining, which means the economies are actually closer than the supply suggest. And while many SCV's are busy skiving, hanging around smoking at the entrance to the base, or playing tag with their xeno-critters, Zerg adds another hatchery in the main base.



By the time workers start to construct a new command centre, the Zerg natural is already producing income. Barracks must have gotten suspicious by the lack of pressure, so he sacrifices asks for two more volunteers to scout. The first one gets caught, but the overlord has been sleeping on the job, so the second one gets in and sees everything, including the lair timing.



The Terran commander adds an academy and a second barracks, and orders his first eight marines out onto the map. Plain marines vs slow zerglings. Welcome to the first campaign mission. One straggler gets picked off, alien style. And, quite reasonably, everyone else gets scared and heads home. Ling speed finishes just in time to catch most of the retreating infantry. But the first firebat and medic are out, keeping the base safe at least.

Both players gear up for the midgame. Zerg has resources banked for eight mutalisks. Barracks is going for four more, well, barracks, and starts putting up some turrets. BTS is channeling his inner Effort and burrows some lings. The positioning seems perfect.



Bringing a flame thrower to a claw fight is a tad unfair. But horribly effective. Still the situation looks good for Zerg. Supplies are close, mutalisks are on the way, the third gas is completely uncontested, and the starport looks late. The first flock of flappers picks away at the Terran natural, and we get a glimpse of how future ZvT's might go on this map with its very large main.



Barracks knows he probably can't deal with the harassment by running around his own base Benny-Hill-style, so he sends the infantry out, to relieve the pressure. The mutalisks look a little slow getting back and the marines see an opening to stim towards the drones at the natural.



But in the end, the infantry gets wiped out and all the drones survive. The mutas are bruised and the third gas hasn't started, but supplies are still even. And when the queen's nest starts before the starport, Terran is surely in trouble. Another infantry platoon marches out towards the Zerg third at 9 o'clock. They slowly get whittled down by mutalisks and zerglings and end up being too short on numbers to attack the expansion.

Barracks doesn't manage to build a science facility until after 11:30, so science vessels are still minutes away when the first few lurkers start skittering along the tarmac. The infantry falls back to engage the advancing Zerg swarm.



The engagement probably goes as well as Barracks could have hoped. The marines down all the remaining mutalisks and shoot a good number of zerglings. Lurkers catch some of the retreating soldiers, but there were always going to be losses.

At the Terran natural, one siege tank is ready and there is also a bunker flanked by more infantry. The lurkers don't have enough support to engage.

A control group of bio tries to sneak through the 12 o'clock base, but a single lurker on the ramp, with a small swarm of lings, stops them in their tracks. But the other platoon has snuck into the Zerg natural and guns down five drones, before getting impaled.



Although killing five drones isn't that much, it does distract the swarm from rallying units across the map. This gives Barracks a small opening to break out of the lurker ring near his natural.



Marines rush forward with siege tank support and manage to clear out the entire contain with relatively small losses. More lurkers and lings arrive to push the marines back, but, again, they can't engage the forward siege tanks. And finally, the first science vessel is there for spotting. Somewhat unusually, Barracks makes fairly few science vessels in favour of constant siege tank production.

The first defilers hatch and immediately start weaving towards the Terran base. BTS's position still looks reasonable, but we see that he only has three drones chomping minerals at his natural and four at his third. And his macro has slipped a little too, while Barracks is keeping up his production rounds well. Producing out of, well, barracks is allegedly one of his super powers.



The swarm is slowly pushed back across the centre of the map. But consume is done and a dark swarm halts the Terran advance. A few additional drones hatch to get the Zerg economy running again. Throughout the whole game, Barracks has been very good at keeping his army on the move, probing for an opening. Another dark swarm protects the third base, but the defiler gets picked off, so the combat units are stuck.

One smaller group of Zerg units makes steady progress towards the Terran natural. But they get cut off from reinforcements by the roving Terran army.



Barracks tries to sandwich the Zerg vanguard. The defiler gets irradiated, so the remaining lurkers huddle together under the cloud. An SCV is sent 3 o'clock to start a new base. Alone. And then gets eaten. By xenos. Not exactly unpredictable, is it?



Do zerglings talk in sibilants? Wait, do they talk at all? Never mind, back to the game. Both players trade units in the centre. Terran forces sandwich some lurkers, while BTS's units swarm hop onto a tank and some infantry. The supply gap is about thirty now and some hydralisks start to hatch. They pick off an undefended tank, and then wander into some artillery fire. Ennui probably. The infantry secures 3 o'clock, which puts Zerg on a timer: either end the game, or expand.



A small group of infantry catch a painful disease and clear the way for the swarm to get close to the newest Terran base. Unfortunately, the defiler falls victim to an industrial radiation accident. So the remaining units can't get up the ramp. Meanwhile a few marines and firebats parachute into the Zerg mine.



The unannounced visit by a team of Food Safety Agents sends the workers scrambling to quickly get help. A few workers get arrested, but the security guards and the manager eventually resolve the situation. The supply gap is approaching fifty, and, slowly but surely, BTS's chances are fading.



A group of hydralisks gets overwhelmed in the centre. The FSA is back to inspect the Zerg natural. This time the entire workeforce gets arrested. The manager has, apparently, decided to give up, by wandering into some siege tank fire. BTS has no choice but to declare bankruptcy.



GG!

What a busy and fun game this was! I hope we'll see BTS again. But if he wants to make more of an impact he'll need to tighten up on a few things, like denying scouting information.

It feels like a 2007-2008 MBC reunion between Light, Bisu, and Tyson with Killer being the lone misfit in the MBC gang. Light has been the best Terran in the world, but his TvP has let him down sometimes. The same can be said with Bisu and his PvT, having been knocked out of some ASLs by weaker Terrans like Ample. Plus, Bisu hasn’t been seen practicing very much and only returned after a 3 month hiatus to qualify for the tournament, where he looked a little shaky in a PvP final.

Killer hasn’t really been seen around much and doesn’t play too often in proleague, but has qualified for the ASL for a third time in the last 4 attempts. With two Protoss in the group, there’s an outside chance he could make some noise and get through, especially against an out of form Bisu. Tyson has been grinding hard and been featured in several proleague matches, but hasn’t really had a great track record, losing a majority of his games. While Artosis has been hyping Tyson up as having incredible PvT, I’m not sure it’ll be good enough to steal a win against Light.

Light and Bisu Advance To The Ro16!

Queen, Jaedong, and Stork headline this makeshift group of death with Skey rounding out the bunch. I’m sure Stork is cursing his luck to have drawn two of the better Zergs in this tournament, as his PvZ hasn’t looked very impressive. He’ll sadly be an underdog to advance over either of the Zergs. Both Queen and Jaedong have both had some decent proleague results as of late, and especially for Jaedong, things have been going a little better than years past. Maybe we could see the return of the Tyrant this ASL. Skey is making his debut in the ASL after cleanly dispatching free and Movie on day 2. But going against these grizzled veterans will prove a steep mountain to climb if Skey hopes to make an upset.

Queen and Jaedong Advance To The Ro16!

Group F has some of the most consistent ASL qualifying players featured, with hero, Action, and sSak all being regular faces in the tournament, while huro makes his second consecutive appearance. But only hero has been the more consistent in terms of advancing deep into the tournament, and as mentioned in my previews from last ASL, he has the most bracket appearances out of any player and I don’t expect that to change. Action has surprisingly qualified for every single ASL since ASL 5, but has been in a bit of a rut trying to advance deeper into the tournament. While it feels like his macro style has been a bit lost in translation lately, he should still have enough skill to push through.

Similar to Action, sSak has been a mainstay in making it to the main ASL tournament, but outside of the his first two campaigns, he’s failed to advance to the bracket. Huro makes his return to the ASL after his disastrous last attempt, with his infamous shuttle reaver fail against Light. But he’s been grinding hard, managing a 7-0 all kill in H-league just a few weeks ago. Perhaps this will be the tournament for his redemption.

hero and Action Advance To The Ro16!

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