EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/SilverskY/EVERSL2.jpg)
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The Legend of the Fall survives. Two Protosses have made it to the Ro16. One is a grizzled old veteran at this point, an intelligent, inconsistent player who has scores of fans who hope he's done messing with their heads this time around. Another is the hope of a race, and possibly the only Protoss who knows how to play PvZ right now. Without further ado, let's take a look at how two Protosses made it and another one fell.
Ro36 map order:
1. Eye of the Storm
2. El Niño
3. Heartbreak Ridge
Recommended games have a * in front of them.
Group D - Recap
JangBi > 
Barracks+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
*
JangBi < Barracks+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
JangBi > Barracks+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
Kwanro > JangBi+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
Kwanro > JangBi+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
Group D was all about
JangBi and his continuing slump. Even though Jangbi's best matchup is PvT by far (check TLPD... it's something like 15% better than the two other matchups), he dropped a game to Barracks, a player making his first appearance in any individual league. That's actually for the best, though, since that game was by far the most entertaining of the ones in the set! If you enjoyed Lomo vs Best in the PL playoffs, Jangbi vs Barracks game 2 is worth a watch. Game 3 might be worth watching if only to witness the worst 2 factory build ever executed.If someone were inclined to make excuses for Jangbi losing that single game, he might claim that Jangbi was simply spending all his practice time on preparing for
Kwanro, a more experienced and probably more dangerous opponent. Kwanro is in a deep slump (he said after the match that he "played... with the determination that I would jump off a bridge if I lost... I desperately needed a win") but his aggressive style is very dangerous for someone who doesn't prepare specifically for it. Kwanro actually departed from his usual style in Game 1. He used an airtight method of positioning his forces to defend all his expansions from Jangbi's main army, and Jangbi played right into it by attacking Kwanro's natural again and again instead of expanding and strengthening his position with reavers or cannons, an oversight that came back to bite him when Kwanro denied his 4th with ease over and over and was able to mount an attack on his third to end the game.If you like Kwanro's usual style, watch game 2. Kwanro simply made zerglings and won.
Group E - Recap
*
sKyHigh < ggaemo+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
sKyHigh < ggaemo+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
Stork > ggaemo+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
*
Stork > ggaemo+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
Two royal road candidates went up against each other in the first round of this group.
sKyHigh is a player who has only really been consistently good against one race, and that's Terran. Most people figured that he'd beat the no-name zerg ggaemo and then fall to Stork's monstrous PvT. ggaemo is probably best known for being lampooned in Atrioc's Hwaseung House comic recently... for apparently terrible reasons. While Atrioc implies that ggaemo (what's up with that name, anyway?) doesn't scout or show flexibility in his play, that's exactly what won him the match against skyhigh. In game 1, when skyhigh pulled an Idra by overextending himself and sending two armies one at a time to try and break ggaemo's natural, ggaemo gladly played the role of Xiaozi and backstabbed skyhigh with about 6 lings, which did about 400 mins worth of damage. It was a crucial mistake for skyhigh to send all of his forces out. It's true that he had to send some of them out to keep the fast lurkers from getting out and creating stop lurker madness but he really should have defended better against the backstab.Skyhigh evened things up by utilizing his first dropship very well, stopping mining for quite a while at one of ggaemo's bases. But dropships would eventually be the death of skyhigh, as none of his later drops did enough damage to justify their cost. If he had spent his later starport production capabilities on vessels, he would have been much better off. But skyhigh impressed me by getting vults with mines as a deterrent against Ultras; they were quite cost effective.
Skyhigh bunkered up hard at his third, which seemed dumb to me. Wouldn't one dark swarm bring all that preparation to naught? Hell, ggaemo didn't even end up using defilers to break that expansion, just ultras and lings.
All in all, it was a really bad TvZ from skyhigh, though worth watching as a spectator. To be honest, he was the one who showed inflexibility in his play, not ggaemo.
In game 2, skyhigh went center rax into failed bunker rush (scouted maphack-early and shut down with great micro by ggaemo) into mech into loss. Skyhigh should have canceled his bunker rush once it was scouted. It seems that he only practiced for the eventuality that everything would go right for him. Of course, maybe he had only been practicing for Stork, in the hopes that ggaemo would pursue a similar practice regimen.
Speaking of
Stork, he must have been practicing mainly for skyhigh, so it was interesting to see the relative ease with which he handled ggaemo. DT seems to be the unit of choice for Protosses on Eye of the Storm, probably because the zerg's third is very far away from his main by default. After Stork made an OK incursion with DTs and a good zealot push, I was waiting for ggaemo to make the thematic muta tech switch that has been indispensable in recent PvZ... but it never came. Stork's HTs survived and played a powerful role in the game-ending break of ggaemo's nat. Perhaps ggaemo felt that he really needed a bigger hydra force in order to replenish the losses incurred in Stork's excellent first push. But it doesn't matter how many hydras you make if they all die to storm!Game 2 was better for OZ's third best zerg. After some good muta harass (which offset losing about 10 drones to DTs earlier), ggaemo turned back Stork's first push . He showed smart play when he split up his army and used misdirection to take out Stork's 4th base. But while ggaemo needed a complex misdirection scheme to stop Stork from expanding, all Stork needed to stymie his opponent was a single zealot, which delayed zerg's 5th base by about a minute. Stork also made up for his delayed expos by making an ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS storm drop and following that up by taking out one of ggaemo's min-onlys. He also took advantage of ggaemo's late hive by cannoning up at his expos hardcore, to prevent zerglings from easily taking them out and evening up the game. All in all, very smart play from Stork... and isn't it that trait that defines him? Maybe he should play EVE instead of WoW.
Wow, I spent a lot of time recapping this group. However, I think every game was worth watching, some for entertainment and some for worthwhile strategic analysis.
Group F - Recap
Light < Movie+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
**
Light < Movie+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
hero < Movie+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
hero > Movie+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
*
hero < Movie+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +
I actually picked
Movie to win this group, and was probably the only non-CJ fan to do so. I liked his chances in the map pool, and thought that if he could beat Light then he could definitely beat hero. Things went bad for Light early... he responded to Movie's double nexus with a half-hearted bunker rush, as if he were simply going through the motions (stimulus: double nex... response: bunker rush). Movie rolled the dice and got away with it: with Light at cross positions, a 2fac wouldn't have worked, so there was effectively no counter. Light just needed to expand ASAP and hope for the best. And he did (after the bunker rush), going expand into fast vessel, a tech that I REALLY liked given Movie's well-known love for arbs.I thought that the midgame was going to revolve around denying Light's third, but Movie was content to tech up hard with his 2 stargates, hoping that he'd be able to take out Light's third with a recall from one of his many, many arbs. And in fact that is what happened: Movie recalled into, target-fired, and killed the cc. After this, the game was effectively over. Light was on only his nat and main at the 16 minute mark, whereas Movie had ManyBasesYes? A subsequent recall was completely unable to be cleaned up by Light, and he gged even though he had siege control over Movie's gateways.
In game 2, Light was able to gain an advantage early by guessing Movie's tech correctly: he got an early academy and e-bay in response to Movie's fast DTs. Light completely shut down Movie's DTs; they did almost zero damage. Movie went reaver next, which I like on El Niño because of the nat design, and did some significant damage, forcing 2 maynards and killing a few SCVs. Light hard-countered with a wraith and that was the end of that, but not before some sloppy cleanup by Light led to the loss of a couple more SCVs and a tank.
Movie was still appreciably behind at this point: 2 base vs 2 base in PvT is not a good position when tech is equal. Light did his best to hand the game back when he botched a drop, wasting absolutely crucial units that could have been used to defend his third from harass. As it was, Movie shut down Light's third with a shuttle/reaver and a few goons, despite Movie's wraith that was still in action. He killed a few tanks and SCVs in the process and was able to expand in comfort, once after the bad drop and once after the attack on Light's third.
The game moved into a standard Outsider-style PvT, with harass being the name of the game. Movie at one point went for a direct attack on Light's sieged up nat, and it was hard to say who came out ahead: predictably, many goons died, but Movie also weakened Light's tank force significantly using storm.
At this point I'd like to talk about El Niño. I like this map a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Better than Outsider, although it's a little early to be saying that for sure. Many of the little touches make this map special to me, like the unique open design of the nat, and the way that Terran can defend the base opposite his main from his nat with siege tanks, but not lock it down completely a la Destination. Something as simple as that makes for more exciting games, as you'll witness if you watch this VOD.
Anyway, back to the game. Movie made carriers. He also made proxy gates, proxy cannons, does storm drops, and generally abused Protoss the way you have to in order to win PvT. He won and Light was left wondering what the hell happened to his early game advantage.
To be honest, Light showed incredible ineptitude while losing his very large advantage. He seemed to be a player trying to copy Fantasy-style TvP and failing fairly hard. I won't ever liquibet Light if he's playing a decent Protoss from now on. I very much liked Movie's non-use of arbiters in this game: it seems like they're totally unnecessary for harass on this map. In fact, if Movie hadn't gone for any stargate units in this game, I think he might have been better off.
On to
hero! On Eye of the Storm, Protosses can FE very tightly with fast nex, a cannon and a gate, which is tight against 9 pool in cross positions. Not sure about close positions. Regardless, this has led a few zergs to 12 hatch on this map, but that's obviously dangerous because of the threat of 2 gate. I trust Calm to always choose the correct build on any map; he chose to 9 pool and so did his STX teammate hero.Unfortunately he made a crucial mistake, losing his third to sair/dt. He could have morphed an ovie at the relevant expansion, but instead he morphed 4 hydras with his larvae. A game-ending mistake.
Game 2 I've got to skimp on because I've written too much about this damn group. Movie went heavy sair and it didn't do much. Hero went multidrop into muta tech switch into hydra break into victory.
Game 3 was on Heartbreak Ridge, a map which has been pretty much "figured out" PvZ. Zerg must find a way to either kill Protoss off 3 bases or defend a 4th that is open to attack from multiple angles. Usually this latter task is done with lurkers on the relevant ridge, so Protoss must protect his high templars, and, when he goes for the Zerg's 4th, he must protect his observers from being sniped. Meanwhile, he must protect his own third from rampaging lings.
Of course, all of that goes out the window if Protoss goes corsair/reaver! And that's exactly what Movie did. Early on, he traded a shuttle and a reaver for an expansion-worth of drones. Then he attacked with a bunch of zealots and a shuttle/reaver for anti-hydra support. Hero wisely sent about 10 scourge to kill the shuttle, but he didn't follow up and the slow reaver crawled along with the attack, killing a bunch of hydras and making the attack successful where it otherwise wouldn't have been. After a semi-successful HT drop, Movie pushed with goon temp. Hero made the thematic muta tech switch but Movie, with an absolutely beautiful sequence of storms, made sure that hero lost all of his mutas for 3 of his 5 temps. After that, steadily reinforcing zealots and temps were enough to force the gg from hero.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kr7qxdKp24#t=15m10s
the attack
the attack
Phew! That was an extensive writeup, but I'm lucky to get such interesting games to write about. I might as well make the most of it, right? On to the previews!
Group G - Preview
Mind vs HoGiLFlash vs Match 1 WinnerFlash is going to win this group. Why should I even write a preview for it? Flash has a 12 game win streak against Terran and has looked AMAZING against zerg lately. I'm sure you've seen Flash vs hero by now, and if you haven't, I invite you to watch it now. I include it here in lieu of a second paragraph.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCCSsVi-Yg0
Group H - Preview
firebathero vs JaehoonZerO vs Match 1 WinnerThis is probably the weakest group of the OSL Ro36. The perception is that firebathero is in a major slump, but I'm not so sure that's still true. What has he done that is so bad this season? He lost a close (and very good, go watch it) TvT to Flash, and also lost to Mind, who's best MU is TvT. However, regardless of whether he's still slumping or not, he remains completely terrible at TvP. He recently said this:
- What does Protoss mean to you?
▲ An obstacle in my life ㅡㅡ. StarCraft should have only had Zerg and Terran like WarCraft 2. I don't really want to complain to Blizzard though.
▲ An obstacle in my life ㅡㅡ. StarCraft should have only had Zerg and Terran like WarCraft 2. I don't really want to complain to Blizzard though.
His winrate in TvP is a ridiculously low 37%. He has hope, though, as Jaehoon is simply bad. How a perpetual starter on MBC (though this is changing with the resurgence of
Pusan) has such a bad winrate overall (35%) is beyond me. It will be interesting to see which player will out-bad the other.Zero definitely has the advantage here. He'll be able to practice mostly for FBH, since a) Jaehoon is bad and b) ZerO's best MU is ZvP. FBH seems to be weak to an aggressive zerg style, so I think ZerO will be able to knock him out and avenge MVP, who got eliminated by FBH in the OSL prelims.
Group I - Preview
Luxury vs GuemChiHwasin vs Match 1 WinnerThis group looks very interesting compared to the last two. Luxury seems to have broken out of his slump, with only 1 loss in PL since the beginning of the season. GuemChi, on the other hand, has only been sent out once this year, and lost that game. I know because I have him on my Fantasy PL team (FML). I'll use this match to decide whether or not to trade him for Justin or something.
Assuming Luxury beats GuemChi, we'll be seeing Hwasin vs Luxury. Again. These guys are going to meet (probably) for yet another epic (hopefully) Bo3. I'm excited as heck and I hope you are too. Don't pull a Jung Laden, GuemChi!
I recon FBH
